A web site for an annual party at the Guvernment. The website was done in flash, AS2. It consists of “Blobs” that randomly morph and float around the screen, they pretty much have a life of their own. Each “Blob” represents a menu item. By clicking on a menu item a “Blob” expands to show the content. Give it a try.
View The Project
This web site was one of the most viral web campaigns I have ever done. The website was for an all ages party hosted by 4Devents.ca. What the Blackout parties are famous for is that at around midnight we turn off most of the lights inside the club and throw out hundreds of glow sticks into the crowd. We first did a Blackout party when we were just starting with 4D Events, it was a small venue called Ice Castle. This party got a huge turnout and ever since we made the Blackout party an annual thing.
Toronto was hit with a 2 day power outage, which was part of the Northeast Blackout of 2003, it was around the same time we had the first Blackout party. Ever since the real Blackout all the web campaigns for the Blackout parties had a dark and scary theme. I tried to re-create the same feelings and experiences people had when the real Blackout hit Toronto. I wanted create fear, surprise, shock and somehow relate the party and campaign to the real Blackout. For the 2008 Blackout party I created a terrorist character who wears a gas mask to cover his face.
I made it look as if someone hacks the website when it’s not even done loading. By “hacks the website” I mean the screen turns all black and some “computer code” starts running down the screen. After the “hacked screen” a video starts to tile down the screen, it’s a video of the terrorist in a gas mask. The terrorist talks about how he will create another Blackout throughout Toronto with the energy generated from people’s body movements at the Blackout party. It is somewhat cheese, but the teens appreciated it. The terrorist was meant to be more funny than scary. At the end of the video an option is provided to send a personalized message to a friend, either through email or by copying a personalized link. The personalized link contains an encoded name of the friend. When the friend visits the link the “hacking code” contains the friend’s name. The code displays “Hello Friends Name” down the screen just before the terrorist video goes on. The viral video was shared by about 300 people, using the send to friend by email feature. That’s a lot considering most of these people were teenagers who don’t use email as a way to communicate with each other. Teenagers mostly sent the link, generated for their friend, through Facebook or MSN messenger. This viral campaign generated more hits than any other web campaign for an all ages party that I’ve done before.
I shot the video in my Garage, by myself. I used a 5-year-old Panasonic camcorder to shoot it. The gas mask I had from Halloween. I created the backdrop using some Christmas lights, tape and a large, flat, gray bag from dry-cleaning, that hid all the wires. I modified my voice using some filters in Sony Vegas. I also used Vegas to add some grunge effects to the video. I also ended up making a video for the night of the party that was played right before the blackout.
Aside from the viral campaign there was also a website that had all the information for the Blackout party. The design of the web site was inspired by the 90′s, specifically the early Macintosh desktop and the internet, version 0.0.2. I put a big, green wireframe globe in the middle, which I think was inspired by 90’s news shows in Ukraine (they always had a green globe in the background, from what I remember). I used a cheesy computer font; I think it worked well with the whole theme. I could’ve made the design of the actual website a lot nicer I guess, but I’ve spent so much time on the “viral terrorist” that I didn’t have much time left to work on the design.